Festival At the Switchyard

For what it is, it’s a pretty cool festival. For one night they turn Historic Downtown, Carrollton into a live music festival. There are local restaurants and establishments that rent out booths to endorse and sell their products and you still have access to all the shops in this area. Think Taste of Addison, only a lot more condensed and a lot more character. The usual shops in the historic district remain open so you get to experience the full shopping and dining experience as well. Oh, I failed to mention that this event is FREE. Well, the getting in part anyway. I was able to sample some of the food from the vendors. The gyros from Zeytin Mediterranean Grill was spot on and pretty much filled me up. The drinks from Bobaddiction and the kettle corn from Pop’s Kettlecorn made for a great after dinner snack. There were a few more food vendors, but I’m hoping that they’ll have more options next year.
I actually didn’t know about this event until the day of, but when I found out that Sugar Ray and Smashmouth were headlining this event this year I didn’t hesitate. Reliving my teenage years with 2 iconic alternative artists that helped define the 90s and early 2000s? Sign me up. One thing to consider for any subsequent festivals here: You’re going to have to park in the surrounding neighborhoods unless you get there early. The parking situation is pretty bad especially in the evening. I showed up right about the time that Sugar Ray was supposed to take the stage and it took me 15 minutes going through the streets just to find a spot. Besides this one drawback the rest of the night was a hoot! The stage is situated right next to the old theater and it’s pretty much standing room only. Regardless of where you find yourself you’ll be close enough to the stage to see the artists’ faces. Overall, it was a great night and a real good time with friends. We’re already anticipating next year’s event!

Great fun. Lots to do for families. Great stores on the square and the booths were great too. The bands were awesome… love the Jack Grimm band! Let’s do more on the square!

Really nice festival.
The music selection varied but everybody we watched sounded great. I was concerned about sound bouncing off the buildings but that wasn’t a problem at all. We were there for Asleep at the Wheel and Micky and the Motorcars. They both were great. I also left a fan of Thunder Road. Good shows all around.
Food was good. Really liked the exotic game sausages and Gyro’s.
Kids loved the arts and crafts area.
I hope as the festival grows more vendors will start to show up. Carrollton has had several festivals over my lifetime that did not make it and we hope to see this one continue to grow.
The only suggestion I have for improvement is seating. Either more seating needs to be made available or people need to be able to bring chairs in. The website says not to bring chairs, we saw a couple of people with them and wished we had know to bring ours.
Keep up the good work.

I saw a flyer on the window of Bloom’s awesome candy shop on the square in old downtown Carrollton for this festival.
Apparently, this is the second annual festival here in downtown Carrollton. It was November 5, 2011 from 11am-​11pm. I imagine that next year it’ll be around the same time.
The name «Festival at the Switchyard» comes from switchyard/​railway tribute as there are 3 – 4 rail lines (including the shiny new DART rail) in the immediate area.
It was actually a really cool festival! There were some vendor booths set up for various things (apparel, knick-​nacks, etc) including FOOD. The real Fletcher’s Corny Dogs had a booth there. Yes, the famous corny dogs from the State Fair were available here. They also had funnel cakes.
Another booth had fresh spun cotton candy (with no crazy colorings added, just sugar), the one next to that had fresh squeezed lemonade. Agave Azul (best Mexican place ever) had a booth, right outside their restaurant, selling beef fajitas. There was beer/​wine available from a couple of booths…
PLUS all of the shops on the square were open. Many of these places being restaurants, which serve booze. I don’t know if Agave let people take margaritas outside, but you could always ask!
In addition to all of this, they had tons of bands/​acts going on all day. Some were in the small gazebo in the square and some were on a big ass stage right next to Agave. The headliner was Third Eye Blind (Hello, 90’s flashback!) and they stuck right to their schedule and went on stage at 930pm. They put on a really good show, and it was nice to see them back in town so soon following Taste Addison. If you get the chance to see these guys live and dig the 90’s nostalgia of jamming to their hits, then I recommend it.
We got there late, because we mostly wanted to see 3eB. But it was still a lot of fun. And most importantly, FREE. Parking is free (though incredibly limited) at the DART station nearby, at various spots surrounding the square, and some people even parked under the 35 overpass.
No tickets to buy (like the State Fair) for food, but make sure you’ve got cash. They did have ATMs available right on Broadway st, but the transaction fee was almost $ 4 (plus, whatever your bank is going to charge you). I learned my lesson and will next time just bring cash with me.
The biggest problem we encountered was that by the time the headlining band went on, a lot of booths were already completely shut/​packing up (out of product), and other booths were out of popular items (out of funnel cakes at 9pm??) and certain kinds of beer.
Overall, this was really fun. I’m super glad it was free, but if there were a small entry fee next year (and I mean small– not the way the Wildflower Festival has started gouging people the past 10 years), I’d be happy to support the city where I live by buying a ticket.
I highly recommend that people carpool, check the schedule for bands/​events/​kids things, and plan accordingly. The square is really quite small and I can imagine that it was quite crowded for a lot of the day.
Looking at the website, I see that Unilocal had a booth there, but I sure missed it! :(Maybe they were shut down by the time I got there (or, quite possibly, I’m blind).
I hope this comes back for another year next year!